;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 26, 2018
Late Morning Update:
International Diplomacy, Trump-Style. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Mexico deport the caravans of asylum-seeking migrants pressing up against the U.S. border 'anyway you want,' threatening to close off the U.S. border 'permanently if need be.' 'Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A.,' Trump tweeted, offering no evidence to support his claim that the migrants are criminals." Mrs. McC: But offering evidence that he doesn't know that "anyway" in this construction is two words: "any" and "way."
Frances Robles of the New York Times: "FEMA is spending more than $1 billion on emergency repairs to homes in Puerto Rico damaged by Hurricane Maria, but much of it is going to contractors charging steep markups and overhead.... Homeowners, who were approved for up to $20,000 each in aid, in nearly every case received less than half of what they were approved for, while layers of contractors and middlemen took the rest, a review of hundreds of invoices and contracts associated with the program shows.... Records show a large gap between the amounts FEMA contractors hired by the Department of Housing were paid and the actual cost of the work that was ultimately performed."
State TV edition of "Annals of Journalism", Ctd. --s
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The video is informative AND hilarious. Trump-Hannity 2020!
*****
Josh Dawsey & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump is demanding top advisers craft a plan to reduce the country's ballooning budget deficits, but the president has flummoxed his own aides by repeatedly seeking new spending while ruling out measures needed to address the country's unbalanced budget. Trump's deficit-reduction directive came last month, after the White House reported a large increase in the deficit for the previous 12 months. The announcement unnerved Republicans and investors, helping fuel a big sell-off in the stock market. Two days after the deficit report, Trump floated a surprise demand to his Cabinet secretaries, asking them to identify steep cuts in their agencies.... When former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn's staffers prepared a presentation for Trump about deficits, Cohn told them no. It wouldn't be necessary, he said, because the president did not care about deficits, according to current and former officials. Trump also repeatedly told Cohn to print more money, according to three White House officials familiar with his comments.... Trump often uses 'debt' -- the total amount the government owes -- to refer to the deficit, the annual gap between what the government takes in and what it spends. Trump also is often not versed in the particulars of the federal budget." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: "Print more money" of course causes immediate & devastating inflation. Notice this is the same President* who suggested in a tweet this weekend (story linked below) that the Fed is causing inflation. I can just hear Steve Mnuchin trying to explain to Trump how federal income & spending work -- kinda like the way I explained to my then-five-year-old (or younger) how a checkbook works. Major difference: my little child understood the explanation. BTW, if you feel like shaking your head & muttering "What an idiot!" this is your opportunity. My favorite part: Trump guesses how much the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is paid. The exchange could help explain why Trump is no longer so enamored of "his generals."
"How About That Oil?" Jonathan Swan & Alayna Treene of Axios: "President Trump twice raised to the Iraqi prime minister the idea of repaying America for its wars with Iraqi oil, a highly controversial ask that runs afoul of international norms and logic, according to sources with direct knowledge. Trump appears to have finally given up on this idea.... Trump's desire to raid Iraq's oil is illegal and unworkable. But it reveals a great deal about his approach to the Middle East. Trump remains hellbent on extracting payments from Middle Eastern countries, in the form of natural resources, for the trillions of dollars America has spent since the early 2000s." ...
... MEANWHILE. Juan Cole: "India's imports of petroleum from Iran in October doubled in value terms to $1.42 billion in October, year over year.... Even in volume terms, imports are up 38%. These statistics raise the question of whether Trump's attempt to squeeze Iran is failing.... Iran's economic relationship with Europe became warmer in 2018, growing by 7.5%.... [S]ince the US has not in fact managed to take most Iranian oil off the market, the Saudi tactic of producing extra has just caused the price to collapse, and boy are the Saudis angry.... So the squeeze play against Iran is failing right at the beginning. In part this failure is owing to the inability of the US to bully India, China and some other countries into cutting off Iran.... Saudi over-production hurts Saudi Arabia as much as it hurts Iran[.]" --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Roey Hadar of ABC News: "Alan Dershowitz, a frequent defender of ... Donald Trump, said special counsel Robert Mueller's report will be 'devastating' for the president.... 'When I say devastating, I mean it's going to paint a picture that's going to be politically very devastating. I still don't think it's going to make a criminal case,' Dershowitz said." (Also linked yesterday.)
George Gets a Jumpsuit. Rosalind Helderman & Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Sunday ruled George Papadopoulos must report to prison as scheduled on Monday, rejecting a bid from the former Trump campaign adviser to delay the start of his sentence while a constitutional challenge to the special counsel investigation into Russia's election interference remains unresolved." (Also linked yesterday.)
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "The 1,000-page climate report released by the White House Friday quantifies the staggering cost of President Trump's climate science denial. The congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) by hundreds of the country's top scientists warns that a do-nothing climate policy will end up costing Americans more than a half-trillion dollars per year in increased sickness and death, coastal property damages, loss of worker productivity, and other damages.... One final point: The report warns ominously, 'It is very likely that some physical and ecological impacts will be irreversible for thousands of years, while others will be permanent.' The choices we make today won't just determine the degree of harm we do to our children and grandchildren, but to the next 50 generations and beyond. The immorality of Trump's climate policies simply cannot be quantified." --s ...
... Rachel Gutman of The Atlantic: "Despite being released on a holiday..., the latest installment of the National Climate Assessment is, as told to my colleague Robinson Meyer, full of 'information that every human needs.'... Here are the report's three most chilling conclusions: 1. Extreme hot weather is getting more common, and cold weather more rare.... 2. Climate change has doubled the devastation from wildfires in the Southwest.... 3. Rising sea levels will necessitate mass migrations, and coastal cities aren't doing enough." --s ...
... Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Trump White House, which has defined itself by a willingness to dismiss scientific findings and propose its own facts, on Friday issued a scientific report that directly contradicts its own climate-change policies.... The administration is widely expected to discount or ignore the report's detailed findings of the economic strain caused by climate change, even as it continues to cut environmental regulations, while opponents use it to mount legal attacks against the very administration that issued the report.... 'This is a new frontier of disavowance of science, of disdain for facts,' said William K. Reilly, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency under the first President George Bush."
Maya Averbuch & Elisabeth Malkin of the New York Times: "A peaceful march by Central American migrants waiting at the southwestern United States border veered out of control on Sunday afternoon, as hundreds of people tried to evade a Mexican police blockade and run toward a giant border crossing that leads into San Diego. In response, the United States Customs and Border Protection agency shut down the border crossing in both directions and fired tear gas to push back migrants from the border fence. The border was reopened later Sunday evening." ...
... Emanuella Grinberg, et al., of CNN: "Tijuana police said they arrested 39 people in connection with the attempt to cross the border illegally. Those identified as trying to rush the US border illegally will be processed for deportation in their home countries, Mexico's Interior Ministry said.... Donald Trump threatened to close the border 'permanently if need be.' He also claimed many of the migrants are 'stone cold criminals, but gave zero evidence to support that claim." ...
... Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Activists, Democratic politicians and others watching the news Sunday reacted with shock at scenes of mothers fleeing with children from tear gas fired by American officers at the Mexican border. Agents for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency fired several canisters of gas after groups of immigrants tried to squeeze through gaps or scale fences at the border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego. U.S. officials completely shut down the port of entry in both directions for several hours. Children screamed and coughed amid the gas, The Associated Press reported. The wind carried the aerosol chemicals toward people hundreds of feet away who were not attempting to enter the U.S., the wire service noted. One woman collapsed unconscious amid the chaos, and two babies sobbed with tears running down their faces from the gas, Reuters reported. A statement from the Customs and Border Patrol agency said that officers responded with tear gas as migrants threw 'projectiles,' which hit 'several agents.'"
Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes": "It's been a chaotic two years on the border as the administration imposed barriers with little consideration of their legality or consequences. The 2017 ban on travelers from Muslim countries was so abrupt it surprised the officers who had to enforce it. Before the midterm elections, President Trump ordered thousands of troops to Texas to stop what he called 'an assault' by a caravan of Central Americans. That caravan is now at the border of California. But the most tumultuous order of all, was this summer's separation of children from their parents, which Mr. Trump had to quickly withdraw. Our investigation has found that the separation of families began far earlier and detained many more children than the administration has admitted." Includes video of the "60 Minutes" segment.
Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast: "In 2009 and 2010, [President] Obama launched 186 drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia, and especially Pakistan. Donald Trump’s drone strikes during his own first two years on the three pivotal undeclared battlefields, however, eclipse Obama's -- but without a corresponding reputation for robot-delivered bloodshed, or even anyone taking much notice. In 2017 and 2018 to date, Trump has launched 238 drone strikes there, according to data provided to The Daily Beast.... Those numbers come with a slew of asterisks.... Additionally, the death toll from those strikes in shadow war zones, especially of civilians, is at best a rough estimate." --s
Nancy Cook & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "The White House counsel's office is down to a skeletal staff, potentially leaving them unprepared to deal with a flood of subpoenas for documents and witnesses when Democrats take control of the House. The office has been without a permanent leader since ex-White House senior attorney Don McGahn left the administration in mid-October. His replacement, Pat Cipollone, is caught up in an extended background check that's prevented him from starting. And in the coming weeks, deputy counsel Annie Donaldson, who served as McGahn's most trusted aide and as the office's chief of staff, is expected to leave the administration.... Amid the leadership tumult, the counsel's office has shrunk to about 25 lawyers.... That's ... well short of the 40 people that some expect it will need to deal with a reinvigorated Democratic party eager to investigate the president's tax returns and business dealings in foreign countries, reopen probes into Russian election meddling and explore the behavior of a bevy of Cabinet officials." ...
... Maggie Haberman & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "When two Republican members of Congress began formally questioning last week Ivanka Trump's use of private email for government business, it was seen by people close to the White House as a sign of things to come for the president's family. One of the Republicans was Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has conducted little oversight of the Trump White House until now. The other was Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who previously led a two-year investigation into events surrounding the attack on American diplomatic outposts in Benghazi, Libya, focusing relentlessly on the role of Hillary Clinton. His most prominent investigation as chairman has scrutinized alleged anti-Trump political bias within the F.B.I. during its inquiries related to the 2016 presidential campaign.... Mr. Gowdy ... is retiring from Congress in January..., and his role in endorsing the inquiry was seen as pro forma. In his place as chairman of the committee will be Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland.... The Democrats are already laying out lines of inquiry that could quickly lead not just to Mr. Trump and his White House aides, but also to his immediate family. And Republicans returning to Capitol Hill next year may be forced by the changed political climate to take a harder line toward the Trump family."...
... Karma. Matt Shuham of TPM: "After Republican leadership on the House Oversight Committee spent two years blocking Democrats'subpoena requests related to the Trump administration and other matters, NBC News' Chuck Todd had what seemed like an unexpected question for incoming Democratic committee chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD): 'Do you plan on granting your ranking member, whoever it is on the Republican side, subpoena authority?' 'Uh, no,' Cummings replied." --s ...
... Eric Levitz of New York: "[W]hile a majority of American voters ... want the new House majority to zealously investigate the president's malfeasance, some moderate Democrats aren't so sure.... But the idea that aggressive investigations of the Trump administration would be politically risky for Democrats -- as opposed to that scandal-plagued administration -- is absolutely bonkers.... There is simply no basis for thinking that Democrats will pay a political price for prioritizing investigations of Trump over helping the president score bipartisan policy victories." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Maxwell Tani & Andrew Desiderio of The Daily Beast: "In recent months, many GOP lawmakers have repurposed their Twitter accounts into platforms for media criticism. Perhaps no one has been as dutiful about it as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has dedicated a good deal of time nitpicking various aspects of media coverage in the Trump era.... Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) does, too. [Lindsey Graham too].... Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, got into a Twitter spat last month with CNBC reporter John Harwood.... Republican lawmakers ... have targeted the broader 'mainstream media' more aggressively and personally, adopting Trump's framework that the press is, fundamentally, an enemy of conservatism.... Democrats, perhaps sensing that Republicans were trying to work the refs, have also veered into the media criticism act more directly as of late, often to criticize the coverage decisions made by newsrooms." --s
Election 2018. Martin Longman of the Booman Tribune: "I did not know that there was such a thing as The Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball PAC. It's a horrible idea. Politicizing baseball is foolish, and it's especially dumb to donate to individual candidates. It looks like some baseball lobbyists were asked/invited to attend an event for Cindy Hyde-Smith and got shaken down for the maximum allowable $5,000 contribution. They're returning the money* because Hyde-Smith has been exposed as a neo-confederate proto-fascist and that's a bad look for an organization that prides itself on integration and has retired Jackie Robinson's number '42' league wide." (Also linked yesterday.)
* Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, the MLB is asking Hyde-Smith to return the money.
David Leonardt of the New York Times: "Big companies are much more dominant than they were even 15 years ago.... The new corporate behemoths have been very good for their executives and largest shareholders -- and bad for almost everyone else. Sooner or later, the companies tend to raise prices. They hold down wages, because where else are workers going to go? They use their resources to sway government policy. Many of our economic ills -- like income stagnation and a decline in entrepreneurship -- stem partly from corporate gigantism.... Ultimately, monopolies aren't only an economic problem. They are also a political one. 'We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,' Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court justice and anti-monopoly crusader, said a century ago, 'but we can't have both.'"
Hillary Osborne of the Guardian: "One of the biggest medical companies in the world has admitted it is having to pay out to the NHS to cover the cost of monitoring and operating on patients who were given defective hip replacements.... DePuy, owned by Johnson & Johnson, would not say how much it had handed over, but it could run into millions. It recalled a metal-on-metal hip system in 2010 after it emerged that debris from wear and tear was causing damage and resulting in a large number of surgical revisions." --s
Raphael Binder, et al., of the New York Times: "Thousands of people took to the streets of countries around the globe on Sunday, a day set aside by the United Nations to raise awareness of violence against women, to protest gender violence. It was the beginning of 16-day campaign urging individuals and organizations to fight the kind violence that will affect more than a third of women globally during their lives, according to the United Nations. Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile and the United Nations' high commissioner for human rights..., urged women everywhere to keep telling their stories of violence and 'to demand and accountability reparation.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Wesley Lowery, et al., of the Washington Post: "Over the past decade, attackers motivated by right-wing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist, according to a Washington Post analysis of data on global terrorism. While the data show a decades-long drop-off in violence by left-wing groups, violence by white supremacists and other far-right attackers has been on the rise since Barack Obama's presidency -- and has surged since President Trump took office. This year has been especially deadly.... While Trump has blasted Democrats as 'an angry left-wing mob' and the 'party of crime,' researchers have identified just one fatal attack in 2018 that may have been motivated by left-wing ideologies.... Trump and his aides have continuously denied that he has contributed to the rise in violence. But experts say right-wing extremists perceive the president as offering them tacit support for their cause."
Michael Miller of the Washington Post: Vandals keep defacing a street free library on Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., dedicated to Michelle Obama. Earlier this month, vandals crossed off Obama's name & replaced it with Trump's." Mrs. McC: Why would even a Trumpbot "dedicate" a library to Trump -- who is semi-illiterate? (Also linked yesterday.)
Jamie Doward of the Guardian: "The Conservative party [in the UK] is under pressure to reveal details about its relationship with the London arm of a US lobbying firm accused of smear tactics against critics of Facebook. UK Policy Group [UKPG], a consultancy with close links to the Conservative party, is part of Definers Public Affairs, the controversial firm ditched by Facebook earlier this month following a New York Times exposé that has further dented the social media network's image.... UKPG's only known client is the Conservative party, for which it reportedly provides research on its opponents.... Definers set up UKPG just as concerns about Facebook's relationship with the discredited data firm Cambridge Analytica reached fever pitch.... In the US, Definers was close to Cambridge Analytica. Its sister company, America Rising [financed in part by the billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer], with which it shares offices and some staff, held a joint Christmas party with the data firm in 2015." --s (Also linked yesterday.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Alex Johnson of NBC News: "Ukraine convened an emergency meeting of what it called its war cabinet on Sunday after it accused Russia of having fired on three of its vessels in the Black Sea, injuring at least six sailors. Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, confirmed that it had seized what it called three Ukrainian 'warships,' saying they had trespassed into Russian territorial waters. It said that 'weapons were used to force the Ukrainian warships to stop' and that three Ukrainian service members were treated for minor injuries, TASS, the official Russian news agency, reported Sunday night.... The Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry said it had mobilized all naval personnel and had sent all of its ships to sea after what it described as two gunboats and a tugboat came under attack off the coast of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Oleksii Makeiev, political director of Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry, called the incident an act of 'warmongering' that 'undermines security of the whole region.'... The United Nations scheduled an emergency meeting of the Security Council for Monday morning, said Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N." ...
... Jon Henley & Matthew Bodner of the Guardian: "Russia's foreign ministry has accused Ukraine of coordinating with the US and the EU in a 'planned provocation' aimed at securing further sanctions against Moscow amid mounting tensions after a dangerous clash between the countries. As the United Nations security council prepared to meet later on Monday, Nato joined western calls for restraint after Russia fired on and seized three Ukrainian naval ships in the Kerch strait separating Crimea from the Russian mainland, wounding several seamen." --s
The Guardian: "A scientist in China claims to have created the world's first genetically edited babies, in a potentially ground-breaking and controversial medical first. If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics. This kind of gene editing is banned in most countries as the technology is still experimental and DNA changes can pass to future generations, potentially with unforeseen side-effects.... The researcher, He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, said ... his goal was ... to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have: an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV." --s
Share Article
Reader Comments (13)
Trump doing the crazy dance again? NY Times is here to save the day! Again. For Fatty.
So, you may have heard about this crackpot “book” recently dumped out of some gigantic right-wing anal cavity that pretty much regurgitates (probably with plenty of extra outrage) all of Fatty’s fatuous and fictional assertions that everyone is out to get him, all that “deep state” Alex Jones nonsense. There was a link about it out here a couple of days ago.
It sounds like the incredible dung heap you might expect from a lying thug like Corey Lewandowski and conspiracy theorist and Confederate hit man David Bossie.
But The NY Times has decided to give it a respectable sounding headline:
“New Book Gives Voice to Trump’s Claims of a Vast Conspiracy Against Him”.
If you were a low information type scanning headlines on the Google news site, your first (and only) impression would likely be “Gee, there ARE thousands of people out to get Trump! Even the Times sez so!”
Millions of scanners and skimmers never get beyond this. Further down you’ll read that the whining contained therein is unfounded and claims are made without evidence. Why not put that in the headline?
“Former Trump Employees Write Book Attempting, Without Success, to Bolster His Many Baseless Claims”.
There. Now you have a truthful headline that won’t mislead millions of skimmers and seems to confer the Times imprimatur upon Fatty’s paranoid fantasies.
The climate study may have been dumped on Friday night, but this AP story
https://www.richmond.com/news/national-world/government-politics/ap/trump-administration-s-own-analyses-indicate-many-of-its-new/article_
appeared on the front page of our local paper's Sunday edition. Like the climate report and Leonardt's NYTimes column today, this one too makes it clear that the Pretender's government is all in for big business, and AWOL for people.
Seems the Deep State is everywhere, croaking loudly.
Can the San Ysidro border crossing ruckus bury MBS and climate change? I don't know but I'm sure we're going to find out.
A certain ESPN radio show does a segment every Monday morning called "Who won the weekend?" It's often just a humorous look at sports goings-on with the occasional serious nod to impressive performances.
I was thinking this morning that if we had to come up with a "Which bullshit Trump burble or whine won the weekend" I might have to go with "Print more money".
In one neat little dung ball, this jaw-droppingly stupid demand demonstrates how little this self-proclaimed "business genius" knows about economics, combined with the impetuosity and impatience of a three year old. Interest rates may go down (something Fatty is fixated on), but, as Marie points out, inflation could skyrocket forcing American households to pay more for goods and services. Eventually there will be a market correction, prices will stabilize and interest rates will go up again, but at that point, Mary and Joe Consumer will have sunk money into a new car and a few new appliances, but they will have paid through the nose because of inflated prices. Later on, when they need a loan to help with payments, rates will be high once more. Thanks, Don!
There are reasons to increase the money supply, but "Fatty has a dirty diaper" isn't one of them.
Not to mention that "Print more money" is indicative of how Trump seems to believe things work. The president sez something, people jump to do it. It's always worked before, why not now? Duh.
The articles, linked above, also indicate the woeful ignorance of the Glorious Leader who is unable to appreciate- the difference between debt and deficit. They ain't the same. Trump, who constantly touts his bona fides as a genius with money, clearly has never actually done any accounting himself, to speak of. He pays worker bees for that. Still and all, owners of mom and pop convenience stores know the difference. Trump, the fucking president of the United States, does not. And worse, he has no interest in learning.
But that won't stop millions from lining up to vote for a blindingly dense dullard once again. The guy who promised to retire the national debt within four years is on track to create a debt spiral that could take decades from which to recover, for three reasons: he doesn't know what debt is, he doesn't know how the economy works, and he doesn't care.
"Print more money" wins the weekend for me.
It's all rigged
Now that he's spent the holiday being thankful for himself, Fatty is ready to get back to bashing scapegoats, the migrant caravan, that is.
This is to take his mind off the fact that the economy is good for the rich but a shit storm for everyone else, and people are starting to notice. But back to that in a moment.
First...some good old fashioned police state violence!
Trump, it seems, wants his very own West Bank. As asylum seekers get to the border, he's wanting to build tent cities to keep them at bay, in Mexico. But Mexico likely doesn't want them either. Asking for asylum isn't unlawful, but Fatty is trying to make it so. Then shutting down operations or making it that much harder to even apply for asylum creates a dangerous bottleneck. Instead of addressing what is a crisis of humanity (something Trump believes applies only to himself and his family), he is encouraging the ratcheting up of tensions. This weekend, as immigrants tried to storm the border, violence exploded. Bullets, tear gas, what have you. Much more of that to come.
Fatty's very own West Bank. Before you know it, he'll be asking Bibi's advice on how to handle people trapped in a twilight zone of his own making.
So, it's all rigged. He creates the situation in which violence can erupt, then screams "Holy shit! Violence. Call out the army! Shoot those people!" Hey, it works for Bibi.
The Confederate approach to the economy is exactly the same. Tax cuts for the wealthy and suddenly the deficit skyrockets with predictions reaching gazillions, and we have to borrow more to plug the holes so the debt goes up. What to do? Raise taxes? Hell no. Develop a logical plan? Fuck that. It's time for every Republican's favorite sport: "Fuck the poor. Again". Cut services, decapitate "entitlements", and slash spending on social programs. That'll teach those moochers. Oh, GE? Guess what guys, no taxes for you. Ever. And CEOs? No taxes for you guys either.
It's all rigged.
Then when they're finished with that, time to get back to rigging more elections so they can stay in power, rinse, and repeat.
It'll be interesting to see tomorrow whether Mississippians can overcome centuries of racial violence and hatred or whether they'll just decide that same 'ol is the way to go.
Stars and bars forever, or the stars and stripes, at least until another good ol' racist comes along?
And not for nothin' but doesn't it seem as if most of these racist candidates, in addition to using hate and division as the basis for almost all their policy choices, are incredibly stupid?
Then again, "smart racist" is a textbook oxymoron.
@ Ak
The "print more money" adage is even more egregious when you look at all the monied class yipping and hurraying Trump's economic "leadership", ie cut all regulations threatening the future health of our country.
The stock market goes wild because the GOP is just better at the economy, remember? Well that bullshit can be officially tossed in a bag, lit on fire and left at the entrance of the NYSE.
We've got a complete fucking moron running the country, and any serious money manager would normally be shitting bricks right now BUT the money shifters hardly seem worried. Seems weird, right? It's because they've already paid for their own gold plated insurance policy in the form of decades of bribes, or um, "campaign donations" to put their shills in the right place with the right mind at the right time.
If shit hits the fans? No problem. Won't be their fans.
Okay, I may have been hasty about the Trump Quote of the Weekend.
During Fatty's Thanksgiving Day call to the troops, he basically praised himself for being incredibly smart and great and unleashed a torrent of complaints about, well, shit he complains about all the time. "And a Happy Thanksgiving to you too, how's that MRE turkey tasting? A little tough? Man, you should be with us at Marred a Lago. We got turkey, shrimp, all kinds of great stuff. A' course it'd cost you a bundle."
Anyway, because he's basically a one-note Charlie and can't talk about anything off the cuff that doesn't come from Fox or one of his usual rants, he's a terrible conversationalist. Some people just aren't good at making small talk. Trump can't make any talk at all, any that doesn't sound completely inane or head-shakingly stupid.
Here he is talking to a Coast Guard lieutenant stationed in Bahrain. So what does he talk to this guy about?
Trade. I am not even kidding. Is trade negotiation part of a Coast Guard officer's mission now?
"THE PRESIDENT: And what do you see in the region? What’s going on in the region? How are they feeling about things? How are they feeling about trade? Because, you know, trade for me is a very big subject all over. We’ve been taken advantage of for many, many years by bad trade deals. We don’t have any good trade deals. How are you finding things in the region, Nick?
(Can't you just picture this poor lieutenant looking around at his mates mouthing "What the fuck?")
LIEUTENANT HARTMANN: Mr. President, from our perspective out on the water, sir, we’re seeing that there is an abundance of trade happening in the region. There are vessels moving through the Straits of Hormuz and across the Arabian Gulf on a daily basis carrying cargo to and fro. And we don’t see any issues in terms of trade right now, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Well, you’ll keep it that way."
Sure, Don. I'll get right on that.
Keep it that way?
What.A.Moron.
Since we're talking U.S. debt, here's who owns it:
https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
Most of it we owe to ourselves.
@Safari
Another way of saying privatize profit and socialize debt?
Our shit, your fan?
More winning:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gm-slash-over-14-000-jobs-north-american-workforce-n940091
Ken,
Wonder what Fatty will say about GM booting 15% of its American workforce? But hey, according to the article, they'll be expanding operations in China (Making China Great Again) and Mexico (jobs for asylum seeking migrants!).
Remember when Fatty made a big deal out of Carrier moving operations out of Indiana? He screamed and yelled and the Carrier suits went along with his bullshit. Over a thousand employees had made peace with the idea the plant was closing and began making arrangements for life after Carrier, new jobs, etc. Then along comes big mouth Trump and "promises" to save their jobs. They believed him. They put their plans on hold. They stayed. And then they got screwed. Courtesy of Carrier. And Trump.
Fast forward a year. Those jobs are gone. Carrier fired 300 in one round of layoffs then over 200 in another. Those jobs were never saved.
And Trump? He got elected. What does he care? Those workers fucked up. They trusted him. Him and his holy roller weasel, little mikey.
It was all transactional. Carrier pretended the jobs were saved, Fox blared out the "good news" and ventilated about how wonderful Trump was, Trump proclaimed himself the greatest leader since Julius Caesar.
Now those Carrier workers are unemployed, some on the verge of homelessness.
And now the GM workers.
Making America Great, right?
Pity the fool!
Fatty is now referring to himself as "President T".
Can the Mohawk and chains be far behind? He already refers to himself in the third person.
Can't make this shit up.